Silence fell upon that glittering galaxy of kings and queens and upon
all the hundreds of their offspring, their women, and their great
officers who crowded the double tier of galleries around the hall.

"Royalties of Egypt," she began, in a sweet, clear voice which
penetrated to the farthest recesses of the place, "I, Cleopatra, the
sixth of that name and the last monarch who ruled over the Upper and the
Lower Lands before Egypt became a home of slaves, have a word to say
to your Majesties, who, in your mortal days, all of you more worthily
filled the throne on which once I sat. I do not speak of Egypt and its
fate, or of our sins--whereof mine were not the least--that brought her
to the dust. Those sins I and others expiate elsewhere, and of them,
from age to age, we hear enough. But on this one night of the year, that
of the feast of him whom we call Osiris, but whom other nations have
known and know by different names, it is given to us once more to be
mortal for an hour, and, though we be but shadows, to renew the loves
and hates of our long-perished flesh. Here for an hour we strut in our
forgotten pomp; the crowns that were ours still adorn our brows, and
once more we seem to listen to our people's praise. Our hopes are the
hopes of mortal life, our foes are the foes we feared, our gods grow
real again, and our lovers whisper in our ears. Moreover, this joy is
given to us--to see each other as we are, to know as the gods know, and
therefore to forgive, even where we despise and hate. Now I have done,
and I, the youngest of the rulers of ancient Egypt, call upon him who
was the first of her kings to take my place."

She bowed, and the audience bowed back to her. Then she descended the
steps and was lost in the throng. Where she had been appeared an old
man, simply-clad, long-bearded, wise-faced, and wearing on his grey hair